


all the king's men

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [360]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Curufin and Celegorm POVs, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Gold Rush AU, Medical Procedures, Nobody is being particularly helpful, Past Torture, Surgical Details, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-23 10:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30054105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: The brace glints, finished.(Curufin thinks he is doing Maedhros a favor.)[Part II]Celegorm makes Maedhros a final offer.
Relationships: Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Curufin | Curufinwë, Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Maedhros | Maitimo, Curufin | Curufinwë & Maedhros | Maitimo, Fingon | Findekáno & Maedhros | Maitimo
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [360]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	1. Curufin

The brace glints, finished. It is made up of several pieces: a backboard of light wood, tentatively marked with four narrow, uniform spaces, through which, when they are cut out, the ends of the two hoops shall pass. The steel hoops themselves are intended to be adjustable, and are long enough that they can be padded with linen or leather—whatever Fingon has on hand. A third bit of steel, hammered straight and attached lengthwise to the top of the hoops, is pierced by three holes. Those are for the pins.

Curufin examines the entire contraption once more, then pronounces it good. Athair does not follow him up from the mine, not even to visit the smithy, and as such, Curufin must be the sole judge of his own work here. He pinches the sides of his neck with both hands. The muscles twinge and ache, tense with hours of working. But he has kept to his schedule: it is afternoon, and he told Fingon he would be finished in the afternoon.

It does not seem wise to carry the brace to the sickroom in full view of everyone in the fort, so Curufin wraps it in a swatch of flannel for the brief journey. Then the light changes.

“You made it, did you?” Celegorm asks. At his heels, Huan whines: a dreadfully vexatious sound.

Curufin fidgets with the fraying threads of the flannel. “I did.”

“You’re going to put it on him?”

“No, that’s all Fingon.” Curufin lifts the brace and turns, projecting the sort of confidence that he knows will persuade Celegorm to move aside. Celegorm responds to strength. “He’s the doctor, after all.”

“I don’t like it,” Celegorm mutters. He is not so—frightening as when he stormed at Curufin on account of Nora, but the storm _is_ brewing, on his brow.

Curufin pushes away the thought of N—that woman. He hasn’t needed her in some time, now. Days. Weeks. On the other side of a battle and a brotherly crisis, it feels ever so long ago.

“You don’t have to like it,” he counters. “But I think we must see it done. You and I have already talked about this, Celegorm. Why don’t you come and see for yourself?”

A gamble, but one that may do them good. Celegorm has always been driven by a desire for action. If he _sees_ how crooked Maedhros’ leg is, and how well the brace fits it, perhaps he shall be convinced. And more than that…

More than that, if he sees anew that the Maedhros who helped to drag Maglor from the lake is every bit as weak and frail as before that catastrophic effort, perhaps he will understand how alone they are in the world.

Athair is gone, save for a fragment of spirit. Maedhros is gone, left as a fragment of himself.

“See for myself?” Celegorm repeats, dumb and wounded.

Curufin spares him a scrutinizing gaze. “I’m going to fit it to his leg now,” he says. “With Fingon. Can you be civil to Fingon? Or at least…keep from striking him?”

“I’d sooner strike you, today. The mouth on you.”

“Very good,” Curufin says, smiling amiably. “Come along, then.”

They walk together, not saying more. Celegorm has been shut in on himself since his brawl with Maglor. Since the lake. Curufin is still mulling over the trouble of Maedhros’ knowledge. He knew how to make one of Athair’s guns near-perfectly. He was privy to Athair’s thoughts and plans—sometimes as much as Curufin himself. Thankfully, he did not know the Tengwar. But now nobody knows the Tengwar code, save Curufin and Celegorm (and Celegorm only a little). The usefulness of it, which Athair once intended to reach as far as their truest allies required, is thus diminished. Maedhros gave away what _was_ of use, and Curufin, at least, does not believe that the full extent of his well-intended treachery has been revealed. 

What if he spoke of the mine? The Christmas attack would take on new meaning, for that.

Inside the fort, Curufin catches sight of Maglor across the room, speaking with Amras. Maglor has taken to tying his hair back in a sort of queue, since he will not be troubled to cut it. It looks ridiculous.

“Come along,” Curufin says again, low, to Celegorm. He doesn’t want Maglor seeing the brace, and he doesn’t want Celegorm beating hell into Maglor at the moment. One must stay very sharp, managing such brothers.

“There you are,” says Fingon, at the mouth of the corridor. He draws up short at the sight of Celegorm. “I—”

“We’ve come for the fitting,” Curufin says, smiling politely, and daring Fingon to challenge the _we_. Celegorm is silent.

Fingon’s face contorts with slow-minded confusion, but he nods. “All right. Follow me.”

As if they do not know the way to Maedhros’ room!

Maedhros is alone, sitting up, his shirt buttoned high enough that Curufin need not glimpse any of his scars. Celegorm and Maglor have seen most of the wreckage, Curufin understands, but he does not envy them the dubious privilege. Curufin knows all he needs to know of Maedhros, as it is.

“Good afternoon,” he says, almost formally. “How are you feeling?”

“Well enough,” Maedhros says, meeting Curufin’s gaze without flinching.

“Maitimo,” says Celegorm.

“Celegorm,” says Maedhros, without dropping his eyes from Curufin’s.

“What do you need?” Fingon asks, and it is only after a few awkward seconds have passed that Curufin realizes Fingon is speaking to _him_.

“Ah,” he says. He sets the brace at the foot of the bed, below the blanketed humps of Maedhros’ feet, and unveils it. “You see the hoops are still separate from the board, because I need to determine which holes to cut depending on the girth of his leg.”

Fingon clasps his hands behind his back and bows his head to look closely at the wood and metal. “I think I understand.”

“How are you going to break the bone again?” Curufin asks.

Fingon hesitates. Then: “I have a bone-saw,” he says.

“And a good deal of laudanum, I hope,” Curufin says, with a swift glance at Maedhros’ white face. “All right. If he has trousers on, I’ll need them off. This fit should be exact, though I’ve allowed for padding.” He half expects Celegorm to step forward and assist; Celegorm likes to be useful at times such as these. He likes to be _doing_ , even if he isn’t a doctor or a craftsman. But Celegorm stays where he is, and Fingon rounds the edge of the bed, drawing the blankets back from Maedhros’ waist.

“If you are to use a bone-saw,” Maedhros says, brisk and light, “I suppose you will want to make very certain that I hold still.”

“Yes,” says Fingon. He steps back.

“No doubt Curufin has an idea or two about proper restraints,” Maedhros says. “Don’t you, Curufin?”

“I could devise something,” says Curufin. _But so could Celegorm, he’s used to trussing up hunted beasts_. He decides not to say that. Not to bring Celegorm into it. “If it’s shackles you want.”

“God, no,” says Fingon, who is standing stupidly by, not helping with the trousers. “Not—we wouldn’t need _shackles_.”

“Lengths of rope, then,” says Maedhros. “If I may hazard a guess, you will want bindings at the chest and waist, as well as the thighs and ankles. And arms! We cannot forget arms. Not that the right can make so very much trouble, now, with no hand attached to it.”

“Trousers, Fingon,” says Curufin.

Fingon flinches, then. He reaches a tentative hand towards Maedhros’ waist, but Maedhros shakes his head tightly.

“I can do it myself,” he says. “Please. I’m going to be shitting myself for months with naught to do about it, aren’t I? Let me take my own trousers off.”

Fingon stands back, and Curufin raises his eyebrows reflexively. He is almost afraid to look at Celegorm, so he does, to fend off the fear before it takes him.

Celegorm looks as if he’s been carved out of stone.

Maedhros moves awkwardly, working with his only hand and turning onto his right side, since that leg is the sturdy one. It takes a good deal longer than it needs to, and Curufin sighs. He would rather see the tapestry of wounds and blemishes all at once, rather than by degrees.

When the offending trousers are around Maedhros’ ankles, Curufin wonders whether Fingon was right in deciding that bandages were no longer needed. So much of the flesh is still pink and angry-seeming. His shins have both been flayed. So was a portion of his right thigh. There is a brand scar above his left knee, and above that, the deformity of the malformed bone can be seen. There is swelling, and some dark whispers of bruising.

It is very strange, very wild and strange, to think of Maedhros at céilí, or Maedhros on horseback, or Maedhros running—

“Curufin?” asks Fingon. “Are you ready?”


	2. Celegorm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the end of the chapter for spoilery triggers.
> 
> Thanks to Mythopoeia for dialogue taken from "brother's keeper."

“I’ll stay,” Celegorm says, and is at once confronted by the unusual angle of Fingon, looking backwards. The so-called faithful doctor is already halfway out the door. So much for his mountain trek. So much for the comforting drivel that he peddles to a Maedhros who will flatter him, who in time might be expected to beg for more passes with the blade.

“You—” Fingon’s eyes dart to the Maedhros between them now, the one who has not made a sound since they strapped the hideous bands of steel around his leg. _This_ Maedhros held still as death while Curufin made marks on the under-board with his carpenter’s pencil. “You will?”

Curufin is gone, now. He did not wish to waste daylight. He has more work to do.

As for Celegorm—well, Celegorm hates being forced to repeat himself. Only—he hates a good many things more; a good many _people_ more. “Yes,” he says, with strained civility.

Fingon makes no argument, which is just as well, and shuts the door gently behind him. This silent retreat is unusual, even if Celegorm believes the quality and attentiveness of his cousin’s doctoring to be primarily dependent on the good will of his patients.

More than can be brushed away with such an insult, though, something has changed in Fingon. If Celegorm’s chest were not caving in under the blow of an arrived-at future, he might think to question what that something is.

It doesn’t matter now. He and Maedhros are alone in the room. Maedhros shivers. Though he is wearing his trousers again, his feet are bare. He reaches for the blankets. Celegorm would help him, if he hadn’t something else entirely in mind.

“Maitimo,” he says. “Wait.”

The look on Maedhros’ face, turned immediately towards him, is one Celegorm hoped he’d never see again. It’s half-human. Even the open trust to be seen there is too fearful to hew to the animal-kind that Celegorm loves. This is the mute torment of the beaten dog, the cornered deer. 

“I thought,” Celegorm says, scraping deep for some scrap of his _own_ humanity, his own command of words, “That I might take you out again. Not to the lake,” he adds, hastily. “Not anywhere we’d be…detected.”

Maedhros says, hoarse and slow, “I can’t walk.”

Of course he’d say something like that. The hoops could not be drawn too tightly without pinching the swollen flesh painfully. And swollen flesh is nothing, compared to a bone grown wrong.

But Celegorm knows what he is about. “I can,” he says. “And I’m a sight stronger than Fingon, or your friend Gwindor with the twisted shoulder.” Celegorm wishes Huan had not stayed for this: for the part that he must pretend to be happy and hopeful, when in truth he is stiffening every joint to keep his bones from shaking.

“Why?” Maedhros asks. “Are you…are you pitying me?”

As much as he hates repeating himself, and this godforsaken place, and Fingon, Celegorm hates weeping. “No,” he says, his eyes stinging. “Never.”

“What, then?”

“If you’re going to be shitting yourself for months with naught to do about it,” says Celegorm, trying to ignore the ringing in his ears, “You might as well have one last walk.”

Huan pricks up his ears.

The line of Maedhros’ mouth pinches like a stitched seam. He is trying to hold back his weeping, too. Celegorm does not know when they became the sort of brothers who stared glassy-eyed at each other, instead of speaking plain.

Or perhaps he _does_ know, can pin the moment exactly in memory, and does not wish to.

Finally, Maedhros nods. Without being asked, and certainly without dawdling, Celegorm finishes dressing him. He draws stockings over Maedhros’ cold feet, drags another shirt over his head, and fashions one of the blankets into a half cloak. Maedhros’ spare boots, a remnant of time before, are under the bed. Celegorm fetches those, too.

Maedhros lets his limbs be moved in watchful quiet. He scarcely shivers when Celegorm touches him. His obedience is not enough to make Celegorm easier over this sort of task. Celegorm goes nowhere unprepared for hunting. Even now, indoors, he is fitted out in enough weaponry to supply a small attack party. His bow was across his back, when he visited Curufin’s forge: it hangs there still. He has a gun at his belt, two knives, and a few felt-wrapped throwing stars in his coat pocket.

He tries to keep all of this from Maedhros, for a little while longer. He tries to be mindful of his brother’s hurts.

When Maedhros is dressed, and Celegorm stands straight without jingling _too_ awfully, hung as he is with deadly edges, he offers his brother his right arm. Maedhros leans upon it, and rises, and they take a few steps together.

“Can you bear it?”

“You could carry me,” Maedhros says. “But that would be an embarrassment for us both.”

Celegorm shrugs his left shoulder. “You’re frightfully thin. I’d manage.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Maedhros says, half gasping. “Much.”

“S’like I always say,” Celegorm tells him. “You made ‘em miserable. Else they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of all this.”

“All of me?”

“Are you only an arm and a leg?”

“Sometimes.”

“Quiet now,” Celegorm says, blinking fast-like again, to keep the tears at bay. “We’ve got to give them the slip all the way to the kitchen door.” By _them_ he really means Fingon and Maglor—although Maglor has been wisely avoiding Celegorm’s company of late. Fingolfin might pose trouble, too, but he is more spineless than his upstart son.

They are not detected, save by some of the women, who talk behind their hands, and by Sticks, who stands gaping for a rabbit’s instant before darting off.

Strange, to see her again. _Now_.

(Is what he’s planning cruel? It would seem so to children, but children know nothing at all.)

Huan pads behind. They’re through the kitchen. No sign of Caranthir, thank heaven—or no, not heaven. They’re out the kitchen door, and Maedhros’ breath whines in his throat.

“I really will carry you,” Celegorm says, knowing that he sounds bitterer and stubborner than he should. It isn’t like that. It’s just—he wants Maitimo to see open sky again.

Maedhros leans more heavily against him, his left arm having come to encircle Celegorm’s neck. The tip of the bow strikes against his wrist. “Where are we going?” Maedhros asks.

“Up the hill a little.”

“Jesus Christ,” Maedhros sputters. “All right, you devil. You have your way.” And he turns, the blanket slipping nearly off him, and rests his handless right wrist against the hollow of Celegorm’s left shoulder. His eyes are very close. Standing like this, with his legs giving out, he’s barely taller.

He’s barely taller.

“What?” Celegorm whispers, unable to see much beyond the grey glare, the crooked scar bridging eye to eye.

“Carry me.”

The blanket falls to the ground, and they leave it. Celegorm will keep him warm. He lifts Maedhros’ pained legs and avoids, as best he can, Maedhros’ pained arm. Much good that does. He knows he’s hurting him.

But this is important.

(Heart-beat, heartache, warmth so much kinder than water. Nothing is crueler than cold water. Children don’t know _that_. Once you know it, once you’ve seen it, you’re not a child anymore. You’re a race set apart. You have to die sooner than later, one way or another. You have to die yourself, to undo the death in your head.)

Huan calls gruffly to the wind.

“Hush,” Celegorm grinds out, but his command is muffled in Maedhros’ hair. Maedhros is very long, which makes him awkward to carry, but he is not heavy. Celegorm knew he would not be heavy.

Celegorm knows where they are going. Up past the hideous grave-mound. No matter that earth covers the dead. Up past the ruptures left by Curufin’s mines. Up the rock-strewn path. Up, up, until he really is worn out. Until he can’t carry Maedhros any longer.

The fort can be seen, from here, but there are crags and boulders enough to hide whoever’s looking.

Celegorm has always liked that. And for him, there’s been precious little to like about Mithrim.

He sets Maedhros down on a flat-split rock. Then he removes his bow and quiver, and lays them carefully on the ground. His coat follows, draped around Maedhros’ shoulders. This reveals the gun and knife at his belt, but there is nothing to be done about that.

“Now you shall be cold,” Maedhros says, but his teeth are chattering.

“I’m all right,” Celegorm says, and though it’s a lie, it’s not the sort that can hurt Maedhros.

Now that they are here, he does not know what to say. He turns in a slow circle, scuffing at small stones with the toes of his boots. He does not have his hat, today, and the wind tangles in his hair.

“Celegorm,” Maedhros says, sounding like himself again. Sounding _knowing_.

“Sun’s bright,” Celegorm bursts out. “Isn’t it? Shan’t feel its warmth overmuch, but it’ll bring a little color to you.”

“I’m doomed to be white where I’m not red,” Maedhros answers. Then—“I’ll not whine over it, much. Over the leg. I’ve had my fits, and I’m finished.”

As expected, a show of strength. What strength he has, at least—a scant offering. Celegorm can’t look at him, to say this bit. He lets the silence grow, and looks over the roof of the fort, over the trees to the east, over the lake and the field he can’t see.

The graves he can’t see. One in the field, and one—

“I don’t think you weak, Maitimo.”

“Ah! You should.”

“No—no, let me finish.” He’s almost out of breath, winded not by the journey, but by the words. He’s never demanded the right to speak before, from Maedhros. Not like this. Words were never Celegorm’s best weapons. “We’re all going to die here. I’ve accepted it. I think Curufin has, too.”

Maedhros is silent.

“There’s something I want you to know,” Celegorm says. “Something I’ve not—”

(The cold water.)

“I already know, I think,” Maedhros answers. His shoulders are still broad enough to fill Celegorm’s coat. Those are his bones.

Celegorm takes a step back. He didn’t expect—there is no way for Maedhros to know. Nobody knows, save Celegorm.

River mud tells no tales. Not really.

“The first day that I—that I woke,” Maedhros says. His fingers cling to the collar of the coat, the button-holes, holding it closed. “She was there. She was a spy of—of Bauglir’s. We knew that.”

Celegorm is still reeling. He is too dim, perhaps, to understand much else than killing. When he _does_ understand, it’s the memory of the kill that returns to him first.

“She took a lock of my hair. She was to carry a message.” Maedhros’ eyelashes, sun-touched, are still tipped with gold, just as they always were. How small are the things that have stayed the same. “But I—I never saw her again, Celegorm.”

Celegorm bites his tongue. He had known, then, that he would never see _Maedhros_ again.

“Do you remember how you tended to me?” Maedhros asks, casting stones deeper still into the well of the past. “Do you remember that night? Outside Beleriand?”

It is not what Celegorm expected to hear next, but he nods.

He remembers the campsite. Waking with his gun in his hands. His brother’s open flesh beneath his clumsy fingers. Doctor Fingon was worlds away. Celegorm was needed, then, for healing. He has scarce been needed since.

“I know the message she brought you,” Maedhros says, quieter now, as if he fears that the wind will carry his voice away to unfriendly ears. “And I—” He smiles, close-lipped. Remembering something too awful for grief. “I told myself, then, that I must choose to hope for one road or the other.”

“What—road?” Celegorm must know. “What road did you hope for most?”

Maedhros’ lips part, but no secret passes between them. “I don’t remember anymore,” he says. “I only know that she was found...found dead.”

“Butchered,” Celegorm says, for here, at last, is something he is proud of. Not how the night ended, nor how it began, but the single instant in which he cut her throat deep enough to reach bone. He will never forget how her blood felt on his skin. He will never forget how her blade burned, and what it cost him.

 _Time_.

“It was you, then.” Maedhros’ gaze burns, too. Celegorm waits it out, unsure of its meaning. At last he answers,

“Aye. It was me.”

“Thank you.” A real smile, now. Crooked and weary and fierce. “It was a deed well-done.”

Celegorm turns, only to meet Huan’s gaze, which is tilted up at him from the path, where the long grey hound has stretched himself out like an ill-laid rug. Discomfited, he faces Maedhros again. “It didn’t save you.”

“It saved me a little torment.” Maedhros draws the coat tighter. Celegorm is tempted to go and button it up for him, slip his arms through the sleeves as if he is one of the twins—

But he didn’t come here for comfort. Neither to take it, nor to offer it.

“Then I am glad,” is what he says. “Very glad, Maedhros, that that witch’s bones lie picked clean in the forest. Any grave at all is too good for her.” He is unhappy with these words, not for their savagery, but because he did not mean to speak of graves like this today. With each moment passes another farewell.

“I am sorry for forestalling you,” Maedhros murmurs. “I only…I only wanted to make very certain that you understood, how I did not—I _do_ not blame—”

“I found Amrod’s body.”

Sometimes the world can be made small. Can be made into the feather of a jay, or the prickled hull or a nut, and pressed into the palm of a hand. The hand can be the left or the right; it does not matter. The feather does not know whether the palm that holds it is the only one. The little stones, the fading flowerheads, the cones of trees that open only in fire—

Even a dead man can live in a world like that.

It is when he must look to wider spaces, must walk in crowded halls, must speak and think and lie awake at night, knowing what his or another’s body became, that he can go no further.

Celegorm can go no further. Not as a brother. Not here.

He draws very near to Maedhros, wanting to shut out the fort and the forest, Huan and the sky. “In the river,” he says. “In the river, I—”

“Oh, God,” Maedhros cries, not letting him continue. Mercifully, not letting him continue. “Don’t.”

“Please,” Celegorm says, though that was always Maedhros’ prayer. Always Maedhros’ last resort, to kneel in spirit before Feanor, their father, and utter his plea. “Please, I must.”

Maedhros is trembling where he sits, but he does not speak another command.

“He was days gone,” Celegorm says. Outside himself, this. Only Huan was with him, then, and Huan cannot guide his master any more than a free bird can guide the steps of a path-bound beast below. Huan can run and hunt again, without the grey-slipping skin and the rot-swollen eyes and the cold wrinkled fingers dogging his step.

Huan can rest.

“He was driven over the bank,” Celegorm says. “And the water was high. The water was high and rough.”

“Did you bury him?” rasps Maedhros.

“I covered him.” Celegorm looks down at his hands. They’re the same hands. It’s such a cruelty, how close are the things that stay the same. “And I—” He must dig himself out of this grave, and prepare another. A better one. “I let him go. I did not speak of it to anyone, until now.”

“Then why,” asks Maedhros, “Do you speak of it to me?”

Celegorm is not Curufin. He doesn’t want to hurt Maedhros, not even if the press of pain will yield a life-force howl. That’s why Curufin acts as he does. That’s why Curufin has always acted as he does. He’s so desperately afraid that the world will fade around him, will leave him in the dark.

Strange that he loves the deep and lonely mines as much as he does, but that is, of course, only for Athair.

“Because,” Celegorm says, “I can let you go, too.” Then he lifts the gun from his belt, and holds it in both hands. Holds it _out_ , showing it in the sunshine. Not a comfort, surely, but an offering.

Maedhros looks at the gun. He does not shake as he did when Celegorm spoke of Amrod. He does not cry out. He is still clutching Celegorm’s coat to himself.

“Do you understand?” Celegorm asks. The words might as well have been cut out of him. He imagines blood filling his mouth. Imagines how it would stop him talking, stop him offering. Is there nothing that can save him?

(He does not want to be saved.)

Maedhros inhales, his nostrils indenting starkly, his chest swelling. He says,

“You’d send me straight to hell, would you?”

It isn’t the answer Celegorm expected. But then, what ought a brother say when you say you’ll shoot him if it suits his fancy? He counters, “Do you even believe in hell anymore?” The metal is warm and smooth in his hands. Still—it could never be mistaken for a living thing.

“I don’t know,” Maedhros replies. “But if I did, I’d be certain that a man winning death at the hands of his little brother would belong there.”

In time, Celegorm will tell Maedhros everything. Before they part forever, he will tell Maedhros that it does not matter, in the lawless west, whether he is wanted by the law or not. They were already marked before they came to Mithrim. Thus, Celegorm will carry out his duty with no fear for himself. Maedhros need not worry on _that_ account.

When it is done, he will lay Maedhros here where he can be easily found. He might—he might even leave Huan to guard him, if Maedhros wishes.

When it is done, Celegorm will go far and away, through those forests, over those hills. It will not matter what anybody thinks of him.

Throughout his life, Celegorm has learned often how to be alone.

These things, in their entirety, Maedhros must know. Yet Celegorm can say none of this, for he does not know how to say any of it if he cannot speak it all at once. Instead, he answers Maedhros’ charge. “But what if the little brother wanted to? What if he were—what if I were—happy to do it?”

Maedhros rears back a little, forcing his shock into a pained laugh. “Happy to see me go! Oh, Celegorm!”

Blood rushes to Celegorm’s cheeks, warming them even more than the wind. “You know that’s not what I mean,” he mutters. “I only—they needn’t be allowed to hurt you anymore, Maitimo. They can never hurt you again.”

_Your leg will never be rebroken, your ribs will never trouble your breathing, your scars will not shame you, your hand—_

“Yours is the kindness I tried to ape within those cursed walls,” Maedhros says simply. “But never did I manage to match your sincerity.”

To never hear his voice again…to never look into his eyes…

“You don’t have to ask,” Celegorm whispers. The wind takes his voice away. “Just say yes.”

“Help me up,” Maedhros tells him. “Please.”

Celegorm must holster his gun to do so. It digs against his hip, as if he could forget it otherwise. He has his hands on Maedhros’ elbows, under his own coat, and then he has Maedhros on his feet.

Huan brushes up against their legs, trying to fit his long hound body between them. Huan has been quiet and patient all this while, waiting without knowing he was waiting for his master to behave not like a master, but like a murderer.

Huan is a beast; only a beast. He does not recognize when a kill is for love.

“We will be missed,” Maedhros says, softly. “In my room.”

“Maitimo—”

“I can walk a little now, I think. Downhill is always easier than up.”

“ _Maitimo_ —”

“Hush, dear one. You needn’t. You needn’t—be _glad_ , for me.”

Celegorm’s nose runs ungracefully. He supports Maedhros on his left side, just as before—before he carried him at any rate—so that Maedhros’ good arm can drape over his shoulder.

They make it ten paces perhaps, ten rough paces down the treacherous path, before Maedhros begins to speak again. He must fit the words between his labored breaths.

“The leg will mend, you know. The leg—will—mend. It is only that—that I hate bedrest so. Not because—I cannot bear it, but because I— _have_. When I was…when they first cut me open, I was very weak, for a time. And they—Bauglir, it was a cruel trick of—of Bauglir’s—he had me bound hand and foot for days. I can endure it, again, Celegorm. It’s—it’s for my own good, this time.”

Celegorm wants to tell him to shut up, but he can’t. The tears streaming from his eyes are in his throat, too.

They nearly fall when they are halfway down the steep path. Huan is there, not quite in the way, but Celegorm finds enough voice to scold him anyway. This isn’t fair, but Celegorm doesn’t know what’s fair and what isn’t. He hasn’t for a long time.

Maedhros is talking again. “I’ll—I’ll explain this all to—to whomever we must. Say it was my idea to go out. You needn’t be troubled over it.”

Celegorm was prepared to bear the weight of Cain on his shoulders, as far as Mithrim Fort was concerned. To hear Maedhros worrying as to whether Celegorm shall be scolded is sickening. But before Celegorm can find the words for that, they are at the foot of the path, and Maedhros is dragging his feet.

“Stop,” he says. “Stop. Celegorm—”

“It’s all right,” Celegorm says, though it isn’t. “I—I shouldn’t have offered. Shouldn’t have opened my goddamn mouth.”

Maedhros does not release him, but he lays his head against Celegorm’s shoulder. It is a fragment of kinder memory, that touch, and it breaks what little is left of Celegorm’s heart.

“You found him,” Maedhros murmurs. The wind is not so loud down here, and they are all but mouth to ear, like this. “You found our—our poor little body. I’ll not let you make a body of me. Not you, dear one. _Never_ you. Understand?”

Silence. Celegorm grinds his teeth together, squeezing his eyes shut. It does not stop anything.

Maedhros holds tighter. “Say you understand.”

Celegorm says, chokily, “I understand.”

“Take me in,” Maedhros says, lifting his head. He drags in another breath. “I’m ready for the knife, now.”

And what can Celegorm offer him but that for which he asks?

_Oh, Celegorm,_ said Mother. She was stroking his hair; her hands felt like Maitimo’s did. _Sometimes it does not matter what you do._

_Sometimes, God says it is time for a thing to die._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: discussion of mercy-killing/basically suicide, descriptions of a child's corpse


End file.
